SN Tripathi Memorial Lectures (2011)…

'Global Climate Crisis Is Real...'
Shri V N Garg

Infrastructute it Industrial Development Commissioner

Shri VN Garg joined lAS in 1980. He is MSc Hons in Physics from Panjab University, Chandigarh . He worked as Housing Commissioner of UP for about 4 years from 2001 to 2005and made a successfulexperimentinchange management As Principalsecretary Forests inUP Mr Garg got TEN MILUON plants planted on a single day of July 31,2007
from mid 2006 to August 2007,and It was recorded as a world record in Guinnes Book and was also appreciated by the UNO .

He also worked as Secretary to Hon'ble Governor Late Sri Vishnukant Shastri .He has worked in the sector of Industrial development in UP in different capacities like MD , PICUP , MD , UPSIC , Principal Secretary , industrial Development for about ten years..

He is the Chairperson , Good Governance Forum ,LMA..

The Inconvenient Truth' and 'Our Choice' by AI Gore are the two books highly recommended to understand the urgency of global climate crisis.

There is a universality of opinion among the wortd community of scientists that global climate crisis is realand it will come,unless we wake up to it. We may have dispute about the opinion but we must not have dispute about the fact. About two to three years back there was a flood like situation in Mumbai and scientists attributed it to Global Warming. Katrina hurricane became intense because of GlobalWarming. There are thousands of such instances to prove that global climate crisis is real and it is a fact we must not deny.

Some people feelthat the problem is so massive that no one can do anything about it. So we move from denial to helplessness. This is not a right approach. There is no helplessness. It is for all of us to act in a way that we can cope with this crisis.

Combating climate crisis is a long term battle. It may even cross our life span, but this battle has to be fought as if it is not fought, there will be a deluge and the entire world will be swept away.

What are the market signals?

We need energy but is it thermal power plants that we need or the solar or wind energy? The answer is obviously the latter. But solar energy is very expensive. The state of Uttar Pradesh has a target of becoming self sufficient in power supply by installing 25000 Mega Watt thermal power plants by the next five years. Thermal power means contributing to global warming.